Services Planning

Based on many years of first-hand experience in launching and managing service organizations, we can help steer your consulting, education and support services businesses on a path to success.

Assessment Services

One of the best ways to begin our working relationship is with an assessment of your current services environment. This assessment can cover any service line of business—consulting, education, or support—and focus on the specific areas where you need the most assistance.

Many organizations do well in creating a quality support organization and even an education business, and then run into challenges in building a consulting organization.

Can you relate to any of the following pitfalls?

The product sales force is ineffective in selling your consulting services.

The marketing strategies and tactics that you have successfully used for products do not work for marketing professional services.
You tried productizing services, but they are not selling well.
Your organization is not structured to take the experience and lessons learned in each project and leverage them in subsequent engagements.

Depending upon your needs, we can help assess the strengths and weaknesses of your professional services organization in any of the following areas: productizing services, marketing programs and collateral, engagement life cycle methodology, knowledge management, or service delivery methodology. At the end of the assessment, you will know where you stand compared to industry best practices, what areas need improvement, and the next steps to take to optimize your business.

Services Strategy and Plans

As in any business, to ensure your success in services you need a well-developed strategy and tactical plans. Having launched professional services marketing organizations for Sun Microsystems and Tandem Computers, we understand how to develop plans for new services organizations, as well as for mature service businesses.

We can help you define your services business mission, markets, strategies and plans, as well as align them with the company and product plans. Let us assist you in creating effective services strategies and plans to achieve the following goals and more:

Increase services sales and revenue.
Add value to products.
Create a competitive advantage.
Increase sales of products and resulting profits.
Offer total solutions.
Increase credibility with customers.
Reach new markets and customers.

Positioning and Messaging

Are your services clearly positioned within the company and the marketplace? Are professional services strategically positioned as part of the company’s value proposition or do they play a secondary role after the product sale? Do you offer customers a strategic solution that presents a new opportunity on what they will be able to do differently or how they will be able to operate more efficiently in their business?

Do you have a messaging document that clearly communicates what you do and the value you bring to your customers? Are your services messages well integrated with your product messages?

We can help you position your services organization and develop your messaging document to guide the creation of consistent marketing collateral and other marketing materials.

Brand Identification

As in any business, a professional services organization needs to win customer’s hearts and minds through a brand image that will attract customers to the business. Through branding, companies distinguish their offerings from that of their competitors.

In product marketing, companies brand the company and key products or product lines. In services marketing in a product company, the main focus is on branding the business, and secondarily the methodology.

Because a service is intangible, a brand is even more important in the services business then it is in selling product. Yet, too often services businesses don’t even have a name. Let us help you create an effective brand image for your services business.